


Let Me Call You Sweetheart

by Nevcolleil



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-18 04:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15477675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: Or: 5 Circumstances In Which Mac or Jack Have Called the Other ‘Sweetheart’





	1. In Jest

**Author's Note:**

> This 5 times fic was written for a MacDalton prompt on Tumblr. I hope it doesn't disappoint the prompter! Some parts are shorter and some are longer than the others. It's really just a collection of snippets I couldn't (or haven't yet) fashion into anything more.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was just joking around," Mac tells her... "Jack does it all the time."
> 
> "Yeah... _Jack_ does," Riley says.

It’s just a nickname. Jack uses them all the time: man, dude, brother, buddy, bud, hoss, _jefe_ , son, partner - and more, tailored to the context of the moment he says it. 

‘ _Who loves you, baby?_ ’ he’s said to Mac, grinning down at him from over the sight of a rifle, or from the other end of the benchseat in the cab of a truck.

The names don’t mean anything, really. Mac’s heard Jack call Bozer 'baby’ several times before. Jack’s used the exact same nickname on Mac that Mac used on Jack just now. 

They were hanging out at Mac’s place. Mac had just started working on his bike, and Jack was going through his online dating phase. 

Mac still kind of cringes when he thinks of it - the dating, not the nickname. Mac had half-joked about Jack needing to find a woman who enjoys bad karaoke and getting shot at if he’s going to find a woman to be happy with, and Jack smirked at him and said, ‘ _I’ve already got you for that, sweetheart._ ’

Mac honestly doesn’t see the difference between that and what he’s just said.

Not untill he hangs up the CB, and looks over to notice that Riley’s jaw has literally _dropped_. She’s staring at him like he’s got two heads - and she’s waiting for him to pop the fake one off and yell, ‘Just kidding!’ 

“What?” he asks.

“Wh- _what_?” Riley stammers. “What is that ‘what’? And since when is _Jack_ ‘sweetheart’?”

“I was just joking around,” Mac tells her, honestly at a loss. “Jack does it all the time.”

“Yeah... _Jack_ does,” Riley says. “He also calls me ‘honey’ and ‘Riley girl’, and I think he even called Matty ‘mama bear’ that one time.”

Mac remembers. He had honestly feared for Jack’s life at that time. Or at least for Jack’s job security.

“Do you want _me_ to call you ‘Riley girl’?” Mac asks, teasing her with a soft smirk and a raised brow, deliberately playing dumb.

Mac’s pulse is actually racing. He thinks back over his conversation with Jack over the CB.

Maybe it _was_ weird of him to say a thing like that - he doesn’t usually.

But it’s not like Mac has _never_ joked around. He jokes around with Jack all the time, and Jack gets a kick out of stuff like that.

And if Mac maybe sounded a little too... what? Sincere? _Soft_? Breathless?

Well, they’d waited for Jack to make that call for over an hour longer than they should have had to. By that time, there was no reason other than dumb, desperate hope to believe that he would ever call in. Since he hadn’t had his phone, with its gps, with him when they all got split up- (Mac had taken it to piece together a quick and dirty electromagnet. Like he does all the time. Without thinking - without even _considering_ what might happen...)

Riley hasn’t been able to track Jack. If Jack hadn’t made it to a radio to check in, right now they’d still be imagining him dead somewhere on the other side of this foreign city. Body lost or hidden among the catacombs of narrow back alleys and sprawling bodegas where Mac and Riley shook those gunrunners off their tail.

Let’s be honest: where Jack _saved_ the both of them by leading those gunrunners away.

If Jack had died on this mission, it would be more than partly Mac’s fault, and losing Jack would have been bad enough. To lose him because he’d put himself between Mac and danger - again; made all the more defenseless by _Mac_ without the use of his phone...

Mac couldn’t-

So, when Mac said, ‘ _Okay. We’ll rendezvous with you there. Just be_ careful _. Remember, we don’t know which of the locals are on Mangieri’s payroll._ ’

And Jack replied: ‘ _C’mon, Mac. You know what I always say... Be charming enough, and you don't_ have _to be careful. I'm more worried about you two. How're you gonna get Mangieri to give up the tapestry? EMP don't work on wall hangings, man._ ’

The casual, commonplace banter between them had made Mac feel almost giddy with relief. Without thinking, in lieu of a goodbye, he’d signed off by saying, ‘ _It’s called a hustle, sweetheart._ ’

“I’m just saying...” Riley says now. “It was weird hearing you call him that.”

She seems distracted, though, and with good reason. They’re turning onto the avenue that leads directly to Mangieri’s private estate now. 

Mac feels saved for a third time, and he doesn’t bother mentioning that he hadn’t technically called Jack anything. He’d been quoting a movie that he and Jack had watched part of once on accident, because it had come on after the game they had been watching, and both of them had been too lazy to find the remote. The next time it had come on, they’d watched it on purpose because it had turned out to be surprisingly funny.

Mac’s sure that Riley wouldn’t find it any _less_ weird that he and Jack have watched a children’s animated film together.


	2. For the Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There. Just like that it was done.
> 
> Jack had turned an easy-breezy vacation... into the kind of thing that Hollywood makes silly rom-coms about.
> 
> [Fake Dating AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also a sort of fill for the prompt I received for Mac and Jack fake dating for a mission. I've been working on a muuuuuch longer version, but this little abbreviated version fits the purposes of this '5 Times' fic - and gives my prompter at least a little something for their trouble in case I don't get the longer version written anytime soon. Sorry, prompter, that all of my plot bunnies have been sort of smothering me lately and couldn't produce the longer fic already!

This gig wasn’t even supposed to involve undercover work - not really. Not the deep stuff.

It was supposed to be simple. So simple that Mac and Jack could simply brush off a couple of aliases they’ve been nurturing since they first joined DXS, instead of having Matty make them whole new ones. Mackenzie “Mac” Dawson and Stephen “Jack” Jackson: a couple of army buddies who went into business together as soon as they got back to the States, starting up their own company. Covers you can hardly call covers. When Mac and Jack use them, they don’t even have to call each other by different names.

Matty booked them each a room for a three night stay at La Villette - a fancy resort out on Long Island - where they’re supposed to suss out who might be attending this weekend’s semi-regular art auction to buy and sell manufactured identities.

How was Jack supposed to know that La Villette’s owners had made friends with a couple of art afficionados from the Maltese who’d convinced them at the last minute to make this weekend’s auction a themed one?

How was he supposed to know what theme had inspired the Danvers to turn this weekend’s three-day auction into a three-day _event_ , full of organized activities?

Jack had glimpsed one of the paintings that was being transported into La Villette’s ballroom for display just as he and Mac arrived. He could tell that the painting depicted a great battle. Swords were brandished - dudes in armor were climbing over piles of bodies.

Jack didn’t notice right away how many of the corpses were _naked_.

How some of the soldier dudes were shielding other dudes - naked dudes - with their bodies. 

He and Mac spotted the Danvers in the lobby, and Jack did what a good spy does when faced with the opportunity to engage a potential target for recon.

He engaged the potential target. Introduced himself and “my partner Mac.” He complimented the Danvers on what he’d seen so far of “what you got going on here” (which was next to nothing, but the Danvers didn’t know that.)

And when the snooty-looking guy standing next to Denton Danvers turned up his nose and asked what Jack knew about the theme the _serious_ auction-goers would be participating in throughout the weekend, Jack said, “Know about it? Man, my partner and me, we’ve _lived_ it.”

There. Just like that it was done. 

Jack had turned an easy-breezy vacation of a sort-of mission into the kind of thing Hollywood makes silly rom coms about, except with two men - because the theme of this weekend’s events, apparently, is “queer love in all of its most lovely incarnations.” All of the artwork being displayed this weekend and to be auctioned off on Sunday is of gay or lesbian lovers.

And as for the themed activities... By now Mac and Jack have endured a dancing lesson (learning the tango, because of course) and a couple’s massage - complete with bathing plum naked together; pretending to be all over one another, half-naked in a sauna (so as to eavesdrop on some of the other participants in there having little conversations, most of them couples, without looking out of place); and Jack threatening a cocky little shit of a masseuse for getting awful handsy with a guy right in front of his supposed life-partner.

(‘Touch him there one more time, spa boy, and your face’ll be touching the floor in a minute,’ Jack said.

‘Was that really necessary?’ Mac asked once they’d left - not that he looked too put out by it.

He looked amused, in fact. Not irritated or - worse - suspicious. Almost pleased, even, Jack imagined before getting his head together.

‘Hey, if he wants to fondle somebody, he can go get his own pretty young genius,’ Jack said, only adding the last part in his head: '-instead of perving all over mine.’)

Mac and Jack slept in the same room last night. Carol Danvers had sought them out personally, during their romantic candle-light dinner, to apologize that the front desk had _accidentally_ given them separate rooms, and to assure them that she’d “fixed” it.

After lunch, there’s supposed to be a “poetry craft” out on the veranda, drinks around the pool with the other couples, and then a “lover’s walk” around the grounds of a nearby vineyard. ‘Dinner and champagne will be delivered directly to your rooms,’ the activities director told them this morning over breakfast. ‘If you’ll browse the menu in the itinerary at your table, you’ll see why we thought you might prefer to enjoy your meal in a more... _intimate_ setting this evening.’

Jack looked over the menu. Every single thing on it was a finger food and/or an aphrodesiac.

It’s like _he’s_ been delivered directly - directly to _hell_.

And that’s just counting everything Jack and Mac have had to _do_ on this mission so far. The real suffering is going to come later, Jack knows - when he has time to really think about what they’ve had to do combined with the things they’ve had to _say_. 

It’s bad enough that he and Mac have to play footsie right now, to hold hands on top of their table, where all the other event participants can see. They’ve got to smile at each other like they’re stupid in love and look at each other like they’d like nothing more than to jump each other’s bones.

It had taken them a moment last night, once they’d realized the mistake they’d made - the mistake _Jack_ had made - to catch up and play the parts they’d unwittingly rewritten for themselves. 

After dinner, there’d been a mixer, and to say that they hadn’t mixed well with the other guests at La Villetta here for the auction would be too kind. 

They’d blown it. 

They couldn’t tell whether the event participants they’d tried talking to were acting so cagey because they’re the mystery targets Mac and Jack are here to find - and they’re paranoid about who Mac and Jack might really be... Or because everybody Mac and Jack talked to assumed that they’re something much worse than secret agents out to get them: a couple on the rocks, looking for sympathetic ears.

Mac and Jack have had to pull out all the stops since then to sell their cover and put their potential targets at ease.

So Jack didn’t _just_ have to put his arms around Mac in the sauna this morning - to cop feels as convincingly as he could without actually molesting his partner. He didn’t just have to _kiss_ Mac - and kiss him good - in the sauna and everywhere that someone might see them since then...

He had to let his desire and the true depth of his affection for Mac show plain on his face. To see the reciprocation Mac had somehow managed to mimic in his own body language and facial expressions.

Worse, he’s had to hear Mac call him “baby” in a breathy little voice. And “sweetie” and “honey” - Mac knows how Jack likes pet names. He’s heard Mac call him “big guy”, same as he often does, but with a flirty little smile on his lips this time - eyes half-lidded after Jack’s just kissed him. There’s no way Jack’s going to be able to hear that name come out of Mac in the future without remembering the feel of Mac’s body wrapped up in his arms as they danced. The feel of Mac’s naked, sauna-warmed skin under the palms of Jack’s hands. The taste of Mac’s mouth. How soft Mac’s voice gets when he’s talking to someone he’s in love with... 

Or at least, how soft Mac’s voice gets when he’s faking being in love with the someone he’s talking to.

There’s no way Jack’s going to walk away from all of this without thinking way too much about the way Mac is idly playing with his fingers right now, where their hands rest on the tabletop.

About how good it feels, when Mac says something teasing to him, to be able to lean in and capture those fingers by twining them with his own. To lift Mac’s hand to his lips and brush a kiss to the back of it, not having to hide a thing that must be shining in his eyes as bright as beacons. To grin and not force a note of sarcasm into his voice as he uses the terms of endearment he’d use with Mac all the time if it wouldn’t give him away.

“We will buy whichever one of those naughty paintings your heart desires,” Jack says, staring into Mac’s eyes the way he’s always wanted to but hasn’t dared. “You know I don’t know too much about art. But you know what I _do_ know a thing or two about?”

Jack knows that this whole charade is going to hurt him when it ends - simply by ending - whether he indulges himself in the meantime or not. 

So Jack indulges away. He grins the type of grin he would have killed to be able to fake back when he used to honeypot for the CIA. He’s got the excuse of just being really good at his job, and he uses it. Only lets himself feel a little guilty at the way Mac stammers and his face pinks with what looks like arousal but is probably really discomfort.

Jack’s only human. He’s got to cope with the crazy of all of this somehow. Mac will have the rest of their lives to get over the time he had to let Jack treat him like a lover and pretend to like it - Jack will have the rest of their lives to ache over it. 

And if Jack’s going to do the time... he’s damned well going to commit the crime that goes with it.

“Y-yeah,” Mac says, “What’s that?”

“Taking good care of my man,” Jack tells him - the kind of cheesy innuendo Stephen “Jack” Jackson apparently thrives on. “What you want, you get, baby. Name it and it’s yours.”

This mission wasn’t supposed to involve deep undercover work. The deep stuff isn’t Mac’s usual gig, and never before has he had to perform _this_ out of character under scrutiny for this length of time.

It’s a lucky thing that he seems to be a natural. He looks Jack right in the face, hand still for once linked with Jack’s, only just loud enough to be heard - so that it doesn’t even seem like he’s trying to be overheard by the people at the tables around them. 

And he gives every impression that Mackenzie “Mac” Dawson is head over heels crazy for Jack, cheesy lines and all. He says, with a voice that sounds uncannily sincere, “What if all I want is you, Jack?”

Jack lets the words trip-hammer through his heart and fixes his smile on his face.

Forget the pet names and the showy kisses. 

Just that - just the sound of Jack’s own real name, said in Mac’s voice with that illusion of _longing_ in it...

Just that will make coming back from this mission a _bitch_ for Jack.

“Well, you’ve already got me, sweetheart,” Jack lets himself say with equal quiet sincerity, hopefully before his silence can give away just _how_ sincerely he means it. He kisses Mac‘s hand again, imagining that it shakes in his grasp. “Couldn’t shake me loose if you tried.”


	3. Unconscious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They look at Mac like 'I'm sorry' and they stare like 'but what did you expect?'... all of them - to the man - say 'where were you' without saying it when Mac presses them for answers.
> 
> Everyone looks at him when Mac talks about getting Jack back like he's chasing a ghost, not a living, flesh and blood man who is waiting for Mac. Who has been waiting for _weeks_.

‘It was bound to happen.’ That’s what their eyes say.

Captain Breckman when he reports back - each and every tac team member when they come in to debrief... Mac insists on being there for every mdb, and every one of them have heard of him if they don’t know him directly. 

All of them know Jack.

They look at Mac like ‘I’m sorry’ and they stare like ‘but what did you expect?’ The older guys seem sorrier, and the harder guys seem less surprised (and Mac truly can’t decide which of those is worse.) But all of them - to the man - say 'where were you,’ without saying it, when Mac presses them for answers. 

No one else will say any of it to Mac’s face, but he still hears them, loud and clear.

Even Matty, who looks shaken in a way that would probably surprise Jack if he were here, although it doesn’t surprise Mac. Even _Bozer_ \- although he doesn’t blame Mac like the other agents do.

Like everyone should.

Mac isn’t in a place where he can appreciate his friend’s understanding yet. He doesn’t want to be forgiven. He doesn’t _need_ to be absolved... 

He needs someone to _listen for a second_.

When the report first came in, everything was in chaos. First, Jack went missing... then Oversight was captured. Just after Jack was presumed- 

But even after Mac has helped find his father- (‘So, what? We’re just supposed to _pretend_ that Jack doesn’t need our help anymore, just because Oversight needs us too?’ Mac stormed into the warroom and demanded of Matty. ‘You’re saying you could do that? You could choose Oversight over _Jack_?’ 

‘Are you saying you could choose Jack over your own _father_?’ Matty fired back immediately.

‘ _Yes!_ ’ Mac yelled.

It took Matty a moment to respond to that.

‘Well, unfortunately we don’t have much of a choice either way. _We have no leads on Jack,_ Mac! We just don’t. But we _do_ have a lead on James.’)

Even after Mac has gone back on the vow he made to himself that he would never let James MacGyver back into his life - after he’s rejoined the Phoenix, recovered his father, and exhausted every resource he’s been able to access on his own, everyone _still_ looks at him when he talks about getting Jack back like Mac is chasing a ghost. Not a living, flesh and blood man who is waiting for Mac. Who has been waiting _for weeks now_. Who could be suffering so much- 

“What will it take?” he asks eventually.

“What?” his father asks from his hospital bed.

Probably storming into James’s hospital room a day after bringing the man home to the States, with very little said between the two of them in the meantime, isn’t going to help Mac’s cause any more than arguing with Matty had.

But Mac is desperate.

He keeps thinking about Lieutenant Samuel Diaz. About other POWs Mac’s seen once they were recovered. About agents who were taken and later found (or never found at all.)

“Do you want me to apologize for quitting?” Mac asks right away. “Well I apologize. Sincerely. I’m sorry I- I overreacted. I shouldn’t have run from our problems. I should have stuck around and dealt with them.”

“Angus-”

“You want my word that it won’t happen again?” Mac says, dead serious. He swallows just once before forcing the rest out of his mouth. “Draw up a contract. Right now. Have one brought over now, I’ll sign it. I don’t care what dates you put on it, you want me? I’m yours. Just give me the clearance and the manpower I need to bring Jack home. That’s all I want, and we’re good. For good. I promise.”

“Jesus Christ, son. I’m not-”

Likely, James wasn’t going to deny Mac’s direct request. Mac realizes this as soon as he sees James’s eyes widen and his mouth go slack. When he sees actual, genuine emotion filter across his father’s face on the tail end of surprise so stunning, the man legitimately loses his words. Shocked silent.

Mac realizes this when he drops into the chair at James’s bedside and grips the bedrail between them in white-knuckled fists.

His breathing is too quick. His vision is blurry. His voice sounds too wet when he speaks, but he can’t do anything about any of it.

He can only say, “Please, dad.”

That’s it.

What it all comes down to... When Mac can no longer handle all of the unspoken words that have been circling him ever since Jack was taken, those are the only words that he can speak.

“Please... Help me. I need to find him... Please.”

By the end of the week - nearly one month since Jack’s status was updated from M.I.A. to presumed K.I.A. - Mac finally finds what he needs to pinpoint Jack’s possible location on a map.

Two days later, he’s headed home in the back of a cargo plane with Jack lying half on a stretcher and half across Mac’s lap.

Mac doesn’t honestly remember what he did or said to get the combat medic on his team to allow it, but it doesn’t honestly matter. Jack is curled into Mac as much as he can, head and shoulders cradled in Mac’s arms, and Mac doesn’t know if he’s physically capable of letting go.

He’s shaking all over like it’s freezing in the cargo hold, instead of a hundred degrees if it’s anything. His fingertips feel numb. Maybe because of how tightly he has one hand fisted in the back of the jacket they put on Jack when they found him - took him out of his cell wearing nothing but his pants and blood (only most of it his own) and a few new scars he’ll probably brag about once he’s all back to normal.

And he will be - back to normal. Eventually. Mac does remember asking the medic - and asking him again - to detail every injury Jack sustained. To prognosticate each one.

And Mac asked the man they’d found who’d led them to Jack’s cell. Mac asked him very successfully. Mac’s memory of that is a little fuzzy, also, but he knows that when he’d charged into the cell himself, the tac teammembers with him had filled the comms with shouts for him to stand back. To wait until they’d secured the area. Until they could-

When Mac finally relinquished the man to someone else, the room had gone quiet except for the man’s broken breathing and quiet sobs. And he’d told Mac everything.

They hadn’t wanted to rush their... project. They knew, from tech they’d gotten their hands on at the same time that they’d gotten Jack, that the men who’d been with Jack had left the country. They’d assumed this meant that Jack’s masters had written him off and left him to them.

They’d only gotten to the second of the major torture groups, and were giving Jack a break so he wouldn’t die of starvation or infection before they moved on to his first round of the third.

Jack is crying softly, head turned into Mac’s sternum, body unmoving and absolutely quiet, so that no one else - even anyone else sitting nearby, if anyone was - could tell except for Mac. And Mac feels his heart stretch and extend to the point of real pain with everything that fills it, holding Jack and watching him.

He strokes Jack’s scalp, back to front, front to back, again and again, softly speaking whatever words of comfort occur to him. Slowly lulling Jack into at least dozing in and out, and dozing with him as he can. 

Mac is so out of it, he doesn’t even know what he’s saying until the plane touches down and the medic, on his second try, captures Mac’s attention and manages to convince him to let them move Jack up and out of the cargo hold.

Jack passed out a while ago. Mac’s just been holding him and monitoring his pulse. For all that Mac’s aware of, there might as well have been no sound produced in the back of that cargo plane for the duration of their flight besides the beat of Jack’s heart and his occasional, almost reverent mutterings of Mac’s name.

The tac team member who helps Mac to his feet accompanies Mac through the base, trailing behind the unit that’s carrying Jack to the base hospital - like maybe he’s been assigned to watch over Mac now that Mac doesn’t have the focus of watching over Jack to keep him on his emotionally exhausted, physically drained, panic-driven (though his panic has slowly begun to wane) feet.

Maybe just because. He sits with Mac for a moment after Mac’s made it safely into a plastic chair right outside the examination room he was ordered to wait outside of if he didn’t want to be shuffled off immediately for an evaluation himself.

Just before he walks away, the way he looks at Mac strikes Mac as strangely deliberate.

Mac finally snaps back enough to notice.

But before he can ask, the tac officer nods his head and says, “Sucks, right? My boyfriend’s S.W.A.T. Had a close call about a year ago. Man, I thought I’d lose my mind when things got touch and go there for a bit.”

It takes Mac a moment to make sense of what the man is saying.

In the meantime, the officer just keeps talking. “You did really good, though. No, really. Or else you’r guy’s a real tough son of a bitch. Both, I guess. Way we found him, can’t believe he just let us walk him out like that. Most guys, after that long in a hole like that? They take swings at anybody who tries to touch them, good or bad. Don’t stop screaming sometimes, the whole way home.”

Mac sort of get what he’s saying. Except-

“That’s not- I mean, we aren’t-” It seems impossible for Mac to deny what must be obvious to anyone who saw Mac on the way to or during Jack’s recovery. To anyone who’s looking at him right now. 

But Mac should, right? Deny it? For Jack’s sake. After all, they really _aren’t_ \- They just aren’t.

“Jack’s not my-” he starts to say.

The officer just holds up a hand. “Hey, I’m not trying to mess you up, if you guys aren’t out yet. I’m just saying. You did good, man.”

Then he leans in a little closer to Mac, speaks a little softer. His lips curl, just a little, at the corners.

“And... not to bust your ass, or anything. Especially not right now. But guys who _aren’t_... don’t usually call each other ‘sweetheart’ when they’re half-asleep.”

Mac goes abruptly hot. Flushed at the thought or in anger, he can’t decide - like the officer said it’s probably both.

“We just rescued him from being _tortured_ ,” Mac snaps, with ice-cold steel in his voice. “For _weeks_. He didn’t know what he was saying.”

The officer stares at him for a moment. But his expression is remarkably calm - maybe even amused - considering the way Mac’s just spoken to him.

His lips curl a little again when he says. “Yeah. I wasn’t talking about him, pal.” 

Then he leaves.


	4. In Wonder (As a Revealation)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's spent most of his acquaintance with a certain blue-eyed, blonde-haired genius worrying about what he deserves and what he doesn't... But some things can't be earned. They can only be gifted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Jack's childhood dog actually comes from KatieComma, and her fic A Good Man, and it deserves to be fanon.

The first bike Jack ever owned - really _owned_ , for himself - was a sweet little Raleigh Grand Prix 10 speed with gumwall tires and a racing saddle.

He’d helped old man Werner, about fifteen minutes west of his daddy’s back forty, dig post holes all along the southern edge of the old man’s property - basically a whole summer long - to afford it.

It was an import, something Mr. Harris down at the local Tru-Value took great pride in, but that wasn’t so cool with the other kids. It was also _fast_ , which was more important - and most important of all, it wasn’t the half-rusted out old Columbia Rambler that got handed down to Jack from his cousin Shane when Jack was ten. This bike was new. 

It had those fancy handlebars that curve almost all the way around under, instead of over, and it was candy apple red. It went home with Jack the summer he bought it because Jack had _earned_ it, through a lot of hard work and long days - Jack’s daddy had taught him to appreciate those sorts of things, to be proud of them.

There was this hot spring about an hour out past the Exxon on the edge of town where Jack and his buddies used to ride over and swim whenever it got hot enough (which, being that this was in Texas, happened pretty damned often.) And one day, while Jack and his friends were swimming, some lowlife good for nothing (Jack would still like to know who) took off with Jack’s bike because Jack had been too damned-fool impatient to lock it up properly outside of the spring.

Man. Had Jack’s daddy ever been _hot_ at him for that. 

Not just because Jack had lost his bike, Dad said, but because he hated to see Jack work so hard towards something and then for all of that hard work to go to waste.

He outright refused to help Jack buy himself a new bike to replace the old one - not that Jack had anticipated him doing anything different. Getting his bike stolen was a dumb thing _Jack_ did. And Jack would deal with it - just the way Jack had dealt with raising the money needed to purchase the new bike, when he’d already had a perfectly serviceable hand-me-down to get him around to start with.

Then Dog came around.

That’s what Jack called it: Dog. _The_ Dog when it was behaving a little less mean and ornery than usual, and Jack felt half an inkling not to want to kick it the next time it came around. _Damn_ but that dog was an evil old cur.

The stupid thing got itself all caught up in some barbed wire this one time, about six months after the thing with Jack’s (dearly departed) Grand Prix.

It wasn’t anything special. Jack hated that dog - but it was a dog, after all. A living thing that spent at least half its time looking deceptively loyal and affectionate, lounging around at his father’s feet. It had never once taken off, trying to snap at the Jameison’s cats down the road - the way Jack’s buddy John’s dog had always done. _That_ dog had even caught one of the cats once, and chewed it nearly in half, but Dog had never hurt anything (besides Jack, once or twice.)

So Jack got Dog out of that barbed wire.

It bit him a couple of times for his trouble - and Jack cut himself all up on the barbs - but Jack didn’t do it because he thought a dumb dog would stop being so dumb once it had associated being in close personal quarters with him to having a bunch of metal hooks snatched into its flesh.

His dad found out. And a few days later, a brand new Raleigh 10 speed was waiting for Jack on the front porch when he got home from school. (They’d discontinued the Grand Prix, but Dad’d got the next best thing. In a pretty, sky-blue color that kind of reminds Jack of something, now that he thinks back on it.)

“There’s all kinds of ways to earn what you get, son,” his dad told Jack when Jack genuinely had to ask what was up. 

The way Jack felt in that moment...

That’s sort of the way that Jack feels right now.

The bike that Mac’s just wheeled out onto the deck is a far cry from the kids’ bike Jack owned when he was a boy - it’s a fine piece of craftsmanship, meant to make grown men pine like children staring through glass at the first set of wheels they’ll ever own.

A 10000 cc Harley Davidson Sportster - the FLH Shovelhead, Jack knows. Mac’s been working on restoring it for quite a while. It’s a ‘73, with standard chops but pegs instead of foot boards and more swaps than the Traders Village in spring. Handlebar... fork, front tire; front and rear fenders - the works. It’s got a 45 degree V-twin Ironhead engine cast in the same crankcase as the transmission - the way they used to do it back in the day.

Jack has openly admired this baby since the day Mac casually announced that he’d found it rotting away in his grandpa’s shed, and does Jack think it would be worth his tinkering with it? Just something distracting to do now and then, when he needs a distraction and something to keep his hands moving.

Mac’s spent endless hours doing just that - tinkering. Tweaking. And more than that - _resurrecting_ this old beauty, restoring it to its former glory of shiny black steel and polished chrome.

Jack’s _watched_ him work on it. Meticulously. Eyes lost in all the minute gears and wires, cams and rollers and valves and rods. Hands greasy and calloused from the time and effort he’s sunk into it. 

Mac did the work right in front of him. Scoured the internet and called little shops so stuck in yesteryear that they don’t _do_ the internet, looking for just the right parts, from just the right year.

And now he’s told Jack he has something to show him. It’s just him and Jack here at Mac’s house. Bozer’s out with Leanna, Riley’s off with Billy. It’s just a Mac and Jack night - nothing special. Happens all the time.

And Mac’s wheeled out his grandpa’s bike - his bike now, and Jack’s already wondering when he’s gonna get the privelege of seeing Mac ride it (god help him). Jack’s set aside his beer and made a beeline for it. Mac looks oddly nervous, and before Jack can even open up his mouth to tell him what an _awesome_ job he’s done - what an absolute _dream_ this bike is, he’s so lucky, and so good at “tinkering”, holy shit-

Mac’s said, “So you like it?”

“ _Like_ it? Dude... This is a vintage masterpiece, man! Of course I _like_ it. Shit, you’re gonna-”

‘-look so good on it,’ Jack’s _just_ stopped himself from blurting out.

And Mac’s said, as if the words make sense - as if they could even exist within the realm of sensible gifts between buddies and work partners, even the best of friends...

“Good... Because it’s yours,” Mac’s told him.

That’s.

Everything just stops.

Jack’s greedy eyes, feeling out every inch of the muscle machine Mac’s just put on its kick. Jack’s dirty mind, imagining all 480 plus pounds of metal between Mac’s firm thighs-

Jack’s nervous tongue, which has gotten pretty used to going with the flow for him, when the rest of him just wants to kind of curl up in a corner and spout praises at Mac about how smart he is, how capable - how strong and caring and _hot_ and-

Hell. Jack’s heart just about stops.

“Mac... This is your grand-daddy’s bike,” he stutters.

It had touched him, honestly. Watching Mac put so much care, invest so much attention and money and elbow grease into something he’d only ever expressed a minimal interest in for himself before. Jack had assumed it was all for the sake of his grampa’s memory, and the thought had choked him up a time or two, as carefully as Jack was to hide that fact whenever it happened.

It takes a lot of love to do a thing like Mac’s done with this bike, Jack knows. He’d assumed all that love was for the grandpa Mac still misses. For him to suggest that-

“It _was_ my grandpa’s bike,” Mac says, like it’s just that simple. That straight-forward. “And now it’s yours.” There’s such a simple, straight-forward smile on his face.

Such a painstakingly simple... somewhat off-puttingly straight-forward smile...

“Look, _I_ don’t really drive this sort of thing. You know. Unless we have to,” Mac just continues saying. “I only really wanted to fix it up so it wouldn’t go to waste. And to see if I could. And I figured you’d enjoy it a lot more than I could, so-”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

It’s not the response Jack should have given Mac, to such a gift, he supposes. It’s not the response he _would_ have given, if he’d had time and the brain cells to put a decent response together.

To tell the truth, Jack is feeling a bit mind-blown at the moment. His response isn’t so much a response as a _reaction_.

He’s not the quickest fox in the race, when it comes to love, Jack will admit that freely, but certain numbers just can’t help but add up to a certain sum, even in the minds of men who are a lot better at guessing the actions and intents of bad guys than of potential romantic partners.

There have been so many things over the years that Jack has attributed to wishful thinking or naivety on his part - things Mac has done or said, things he’s let Jack get away with doing or saying. Without any one of them, a gift like this might not mean _quite_ the same thing. Before this gift, Jack’s done nothing but attribute and speculate and wonder. 

But put it all together...

Mac’s frozen, like he’s been caught in the headlights he had to hunt through an old junkyard in Alabama to find exactly the right mounting kit to restore.

His face still wears that bland look on it, but his eyes are shining with that light that always sparks up behind them whenever he’s trying to think on a problem faster than most men can spell the word.

“It’s- It’s not a big deal... Like I said, I-”

“Thought I’d enjoy it,” Jack repeats for him, nodding his head. “Yeah. So you... spent something like _eleven months_ putting it back together? Rebuilding it down to the seals on the engine casting. Oh, Mac-”

All at once, the bland guise drops. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Mac says. “Jack, just-”

There have been so many things over the years-

And after that, Jack just truly can’t stand to waste another second on wading through the thoughts and talk that have held him back from doing the math of it all before.

Jack steps in close. The bike brushes up against his side, so he leans his weight left so as not to knock it over. And at the same time he captures Mac’s sharp jaw in both his hands, seals his mouth over Mac’s sweet lips, and kisses him the way Jack’s been dreaming of kissing his partner for so long, he’s started to see the image in his head the way he sees some fond, old memories. Whisper-like and indistinct, more dream than recall, glorified and stylized in his brain.

Only he’s never had a dream as glorious as the way Mac’s mouth feels when he opens up for Jack, lets Jack in.

The way he _kisses Jack back_.

His taste- _Oh god_ , his taste...

His hands land on Jack’s hips, and not tentatively either. He grips Jack with force, with intent. With a touch that says, ‘Oh, thank god, finally. Don’t think you’re getting away again after this.’

Can a man _earn_ a touch like that?

Jack’s spent just about the entirety of his acquaintance with a certain sky-blue-eyed, blonde-headed genius worrying about what he deserves and what he doesn’t, but in the end Mac’s hands on him, his mouth moving against Jack’s, is just as Mac’s said.

A _gift_. 

“No take-backs,” Jack says before he’s even realized he’s saying it, into Mac’s mouth, around the hot slide of Mac’s tongue.

Mac laughs. He practically _giggles_. He sounds giddy. Like _he’s_ the one someone’s gifted with something great, something truly special. Something you can’t even work your ass off to get, because it can’t be won or bought or talked around in your favor.

“I won’t take it back,” he promises.

“Any of it,” Jack can’t stop himself from saying, hands moving now, to work out some of the things _they’ve_ dreamed about over the years. What it feels like to fist into the soft waves of Mac’s hair. What the sturdy spread of Mac’s shoulders feels like against the palms of Jack’s hands... “It’s now or never, Mac. You gotta decide now. If it’s something you can’t bear to let go of, I mean for good-”

Mac pulls back. Breaks their kiss completely. But there’s such a look of wonder in his pretty eyes... Jack can’t find a single one of the old doubts in his mind to worry him before he and Mac are kissing again.

Mac says what, coming from anyone else, would sound like a totally unrelated topic when he first starts talking, gasping quietly and stuttering occasionally as Jack moves his mouth to the corner of Mac’s lips - then to the hinge of his handsome jaw... down the sweet stretch of his neck-

“Harley Davidson made, like, two dozen changes to the cam followers they put in their- in their K and W model Sportsters between 1929 and 1980-” he says.

“That’s a lot,” Jack plays along, grinning, mouth pressed tight to the bob of Mac’s adam’s apple as he shudders and swallows.

Mac teeters a little, almost like he’s gone weak at the knees. Jack wraps his arms around Mac’s middle and holds him steady.

“That’s- It’s- It’s rare to find a 18.6 mm diameter body with- with all the 21.7 mm di-diameter rollers intact-”

“Well, then,” Jack says. “I guess I oughtta hold onto what I got, huh?”

Jack nips at Mac’s right earlobe.

Out of the corner of his eyes, there’s just enough distance between them so that Jack can see that Mac is grinning now with him.

At least until things start to get serious.

“No take backs,” Mac finally agrees, as he closes that distance once more, seeks out Jack’s mouth once again.


	5. When (They Think) There’s No One Around to Hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Mornin’, sweetheart_.”
> 
> It’s the first sound to fill the small space of Jack Dalton’s apartment, besides the soft sounds of its occupants’ quiet breathing, in hours.
> 
> (Murdoc should know. He's been waiting outside of Dalton's bedroom door for some time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part that gives this little collection of snippets its rating - please heed! Murdoc is involved, and voyeurism. And rough sex. (No, not _with_ Murdoc. But still.) I hope this doesn't feel too displaced, but as I said, this is more a collection of ficlets with one commonality than a fully unified set of fics that snap together. Let me know if you manage to enjoy this fic. It is weird and a little out of left field, but I wanted to get it out of my head, and it does fit the prompt of Mac and/or Jack calling one another 'sweetheart'. :p

“ _Mornin’, sweetheart_.”

It’s the first sound to fill the small space of Jack Dalton’s apartment, besides the soft sounds of its occupants’ quiet breathing, in hours.

Dalton says the words, voice rough and heavy with sleep, perhaps directly against the skin of the lover lying next to him in his bed. Blissfully unaware of the audience to his gentle greeting - of the man who lies in wait, watching from the sliver of an opening in the bedroom’s door, for the moment that Dalton’s feet hit the floor. 

Murdoc is a good sport, after all.

At least he can be, when sport is well-deserved, and for all of his many failings, Dalton - Murdoc believes - has more than earned the right to die facing the man who’s come for his life. If by no other virtue than by having presented such a formative influence on the life of his even worthier partner.

Murdoc prefers not to think on what influence Jack’s death will have on said partner, but he’s honestly been left with little choice. The last time circumstances forced the three of them together, Murdoc drew Angus MacGyver’s blood. It was unfortunate happenstance - unplanned - and, ultimately, unavoidable in order to save the boy’s life, but the fact remains. He made Dalton’s precious “Mac” _bleed_. And whether he saved Angus’s life in the process or not, he knows enough about Dalton - knows from what he saw in the other man’s eyes as Dalton approached him in that warehouse, Mac lying between them in the dirt - to know that the man won’t let this grievance stand. 

Quite frankly... Dalton has caused Murdoc enough headaches _without_ the bullet Murdoc put into Angus’s shoulder motivating him, as Dalton will no doubt be motivated the next time their paths cross.

A second voice mumbles something too softly and too distinctly for Murdoc to hear; sheets rustle. Murdoc shifts on his feet, redistributes his weight. He hasn’t drawn his weapon - he won’t until he’s revealed himself. He’ll let Dalton go for the drawer in his bedside table, or perhaps beneath the bedframe; Dalton’s sure to have various means of defending himself stashed at arm’s reach, considering the sort of man that he is.

Considering the sort of man that _Murdoc_ is - i.e. not so different from Angus’s bureaucratized wet boy, save that he kids himself and others less - it never occured to him that the person Dalton’s just spent the night rustling sheets with would be anyone other than some bland, obliging bimbo.

Then Dalton rolls over, not to get out of bed, but to straddle his bed partner, and Murdoc sees at last that that, at least, he’d got incredibly, near unbelievably wrong...

Because Jack Dalton’s _bed_ partner... and his partner... are one in the same.

The sheet slips, Murdoc freezes, and he is treated to a clear view of MacGyver’s blonde head - hair sleep- and sex-mussed, face relaxed in langour and in quiet pleasure - before Dalton repositions himself, and all Murdoc can see is Dalton’s naked back, Mac’s hands sliding lazily up from Dalton’s sheet and over his lover’s skin.

“Yeah, it is,” Murdoc hears Dalton say, in response to the mumble Murdoc hadn’t been able to make out. “And it’s fixin’ to get a whole lot better if you’re up for it.”

His voice is more heated now, but still drowsy, and all the more compelling to Murdoc’s imagination now that Murdoc realizes it was _Angus_ Dalton’s been dozing beside. Angus lying in Dalton’s bed, presumably as naked as Dalton seems to be, judging from the shape the sheet takes settled over Dalton’s ass. Murdoc sees it now that he’s looking more closely. Sees that it’s clearly two sets of masculine legs stretched out alongside one another - Jack’s to either side of Mac’s - underneath that sheet.

“You saying _this_ doesn’t feel like I’m up for it,” Murdoc easily hears Angus say this time, and he blinks. From this angle, he can’t see how Angus moves as he speaks, but he hardly needs to to determine what “this” Angus is referring to. Dalton groans, and the muscles in his back move evocatively.

“I’m saying you keep doing _that_ , I’m gonna end up doing a whole lot more than rub us off real quick,” Dalton says, unmistakably breathless. “And that’d be pretty selfish of me, babe. After I rode you so hard last night.”

That’s just.

This is _s u r r e a l_ is just.

“Doesn’t sound selfish to me,” Angus says so very matter-of-fact. “Considering how much I like it when you ride me hard.”

Dalton more or less groans for the both of them.

“Boy, you are going to be the death of me...” he grinds out, before his head drops and wet sounds replace his and Angus’s banter.

‘No, that would be my job,’ Murdoc entertains, somewhat hysterically, the thought of piping up and saying. Although suddenly it’s not his _gun_ he most needs to access his patience to resist pulling out of his pants.

If he - hypothetically - had ever imagined what sort of bed partners Angus chooses to rustle sheets with _him_ , Murdoc had (hypothetically, mind you) imagined the same bland, if even more obliging bimbos he’d have sworn a man’s man like Jack regularly takes to bed.

The disconnect between his expectations and reality has him reeling.

It’s Angus who breaks the kiss with Dalton and says, louder and clearer than anything before, “Shit. Jack, I’m serious. Do it.”

He and Dalton have begun moving quite a lot, Murdoc realizes. And in a very telling fashion - but no more tellingly than the way the shape beneath the sheet changes as Mac apparently draws up his knees to either side of Jack’s waist.

“Really? Need me to...”

“No, I’m still-”

“Oh god,” Dalton says as his hips stutter forward, searchingly. Apparently finding what Angus is “still”, as Dalton repeats again, “Oh god...”

“Yeah...Fuck, yeah, do it, Jack,” Angus says - dirty words from a pretty mouth - although what more exactly he is asking Jack to do, Murdoc can’t fathom.   
Because Jack is already rising up on his arms, pulling his own knees forward, positioning himself just as he must to-

“Okay, baby. Hold on for me... Hold on, sweetheart.”

Murdoc doesn’t know what he’s-

Until he sees Angus’s arms reach out from either side of the tangle of his and Dalton’s bodies, sees Angus’s clever hands flatten against the bare wall the head of Dalton’s bed is not quite butted fully up against. As if he’s...

Bracing himself. The same as Dalton, who’s risen up almost fully onto his knees, looming over Angus with one hand braced against the mattress, pressing one against the wall just above Angus’s.

Murdoc breathes very careful, very measured breaths. His eyes burn, which is how he knows he hasn’t _blinked_ in many seconds, but he remains unblinking a moment still.

The first snap of Dalton’s hips is so shockingly, satisfyingly _brutal_ \- Murdoc’s eyes flutter shut in the next moment anyhow.

He forces them back open immediately. No. Perhaps Dalton isn’t brutal with his Mac, but he is very deliberately _not_ gentle. The entire bed rocks with the force of his thrust into Angus’s waiting body, and would undoubtedly slam into the wall if he and Angus hadn’t both positioned themselves just so to prevent it.

Dalton grunts in exertion and, Murdoc can only _imagine_ , ecstacy, and Mac cries out in a sound of such deliciously mixed pain and pleasure-

“Oh, Jack... Jackie-” Angus moans.

Dalton only grunts and pounds into him again... And _again_...

Altogether, they fuck for only minutes in this way. It obviously takes very little of this sort of relentless, _irreverent_ penetration to have Angus arching underneath Dalton and shouting in pure, undiluted completion-

Which is the very thought that renders Murdoc’s patience absolutely non-existent. 

He pulls the pistol from his waistband and relocates it as carefully as he can manage with hands practically singing with the need to touch, to take - to the floor beside his feet.

It’s an unconscionable act, not that the only other living beings within distance are in a position to benefit from (or even care about) his miss-step, nevermind that they still don’t know that he’s here with them.

Murdoc wraps a fist around his own cock just as Dalton gentles the merciless command of his own. Dalton drops onto Angus, begins swallowing the little gasps and whimpers Angus is making in aftershock, and lowers the hand he has on the wall until he can link fingers with one of Angus’s hands.

His body writhes and rolls on top of Angus more than it pumps; the words he mutters presumably into Angus’s mouth, reaching Murdoc’s ears muffled and indistinct, are saccharine. But overlaid across the image in front of Murdoc’s eyes, he sees how _he_ would proceed in Dalton’s place, with a pleasure-drained Angus MacGyver spread out, loose and compliant, beneath him - urging him on with soft praise and sex-roughened exhalations of his name.

Instead of “Yeah, baby... Jackie... Jack, please...” Angus would be saying his name - his _real_ name. Murdoc would tell it to him and swear him to silence under all but this circumstance - when he has Murdoc pinning him down and continuing to pound into him just as Dalton did before, regardless of however sensitive he might be in the aftermath of his orgasm.

Murdoc would continue taking him just like that, exactly like that, for as long as Murdoc could manage it. For as long as it would take to have the man begging, writhing ineffectually beneath him, in an entirely different way. Then he’d order Angus to hold still and _let him_ continue. He’d _wring_ Angus’s next orgasm out of him, with firm hands and commanding words - not the delicate touches and ridiculous prattle Dalton uses to eventually coax another cry out of Angus as Murdoc listens. 

He’d make it entirely, undeniably clear that Angus is _his_ , his in every possible sense of the word, because he wills it. Because he wants it. Because he is control - not this bleeding heart with his tantalizingly contradictory taste in men. Not the government-grown, family-friendly version of Murdoc himself that Angus has gifted himself to.

Murdoc’s already come, already gotten his - silent but oh, _oh_ so satisfying - when Dalton begins to rock on top of Angus with less rhythm, making choked off, needy noises as Angus whispers things in his ear that Murdoc can’t make out. 

All Murdoc can tell is that Angus’s words seem to draw out Dalton’s climax as surely as the tight clench of his body, and now Murdoc has the privelege of knowing the exact pitch of Jack Dalton’s wordless shout as he falls apart on top of and _inside of_ their favorite young genius.

Murdoc tucks himself away. Retrieves his pistol and returns it to its place. There’ll be no face-off with Dalton today, not with the memory of Angus’s sex-sounds still singing through Murdoc’s veins. Not with this new knowledge of his enemy to consider more carefully.

He leaves the couple to their afterglow, taking a moment and some papertowels from Dalton’s kitchen to clean up the evidence he left on Dalton’s bedroom door - as much as the idea of leaving it, of their inevitable reactions should he let them find it, amuses him.

He consoles himself by imagining the fun he’ll have the next time they meet on equal ground - when he calls Angus ‘sweetheart’ and Dalton ‘Jackie’ and watches them scramble to make some sense out of the words coming from his mouth.


End file.
